The next event in the 2013-14 series of programs presented by the Scripps College Humanities Institute features women who bring spoken word, music and dance from feminist perspectives that critically reflect intersectional struggles across race, class and sexuality.
Helena MarÃa Viramontes
Award-winning author Helena MarÃa Viramontes, acclaimed Broadway and screen actress Alma MartÃnez; Grammy award-winning musician Martha González; and Scripps College Associate Professor of Music Cándida F. Jáquez, who is also director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute, will host the peña “Entre Mujeres (Between Women): Embodied Knowledges” on April 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Garrison Theater of the Scripps College Performing Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public.
“A peña is most broadly conceived as a community gathering through the arts that often relates to social justice issues,” Jáquez says.
The event will culminate Jáquez’s term as institute director and will mark the end of the institute’s spring semester series, “Feminisms and the Radical Imagination.”
Alma MartÃnez
The evening will include performances and presentations by each of the women, an informal Q&A session and a small reception following the show.
Viramontes is professor of creative writing at Cornell University and author of “Their Dogs Came With Them,” “The Moths and Other Stories” and “Under the Feet of Jesus.” She has won numerous awards and honors, including the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, a Sundance Institute Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
MartÃnez, a Fulbright scholar and the first Latina/o Ph.D. to be inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Actors’ Branch, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Actors’ Peer Group, made her American film debut in “Zoot Suit” and was a principal actress in influential political theater group El Teatro Campesino. In addition to her scholarly work, she has acted in numerous stage and film productions.
Martha González
González, assistant professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o studies at Scripps College and a member of the music group Quetzal, won a Grammy last year for the group’s album, “Imaginaries.” Quetzal has been featured by the U.S. Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and Smithsonian Institution.
Cándida F. Jáquez
Jáquez has focused her research on Latino popular and Mexican traditional music, with a specialty in women’s mariachi performances. She has served as vice president on the board of directors for the Arte Américas Museum and remains an active member of the Chicana community in promoting the arts and education for under-represented groups.
For more information, please call (909) 621-8237 or visit scripps-staging.skybox0.com/hi.